1. The Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus used to dispense beverages. More particularly, the present invention relates to devices which are used to treat water and/or to dispense a plurality of beverages.
2. The Prior Art
Consuming various types of beverages has become a common activity throughout the day in modern industrial societies. The consumption of bottled water, as well as mixed soft drinks such as carbonated soft drinks and plain and sparkling juices, has increased significantly over the past decade.
All kinds of beverages are now expected by the consumer, not just at a restaurant, but also at the work place and at home. Moreover, consumers have become generally more conscious about the healthfulness and purity of the beverages they consume. Whether it is straight water or a fruit juice, consumers now demand that the beverage not contain any undesirable matter.
In some cases, the purchase of bottled beverages can give the consumer at least a minimum amount of confidence in the purity of the beverage. Bottled beverages, however, are bulky, require a significant amount of refrigerator space, and are expensive. In order to avoid the high cost of dispensing bottled beverages, beverage dispensing apparatus have developed.
In the past, beverage dispensers have been limited to use in commercial applications, such as restaurants, due to the high capital cost, the bulky equipment required, and the knowledge and cumbersome procedures required to maintain and use the apparatus. In those applications where beverage dispensers are used, water available from the public culinary water supply has generally been used without any treatment or purification. In most cases, the general wisdom is that any undesirable tastes present in the culinary water will be masked by the flavoring added to the water. Significantly, consumers of beverages have recently come to expect better quality and purer beverages as well as pure straight water to drink.
The available beverage dispensing devices are ill adapted to small scale use. Thus, consumers of beverages have been unable to obtain a beverage dispensing apparatus for use in the home, office, recreational vehicle, boat, or other location where relatively small volumes, in comparison to a commercial restaurant, of one or more beverages would be dispensed.
With these difficulties in mind, it would be an advance in the art to provide a beverage dispensing apparatus which can reliably and efficiently dispense a variety of beverages from a compact apparatus and which includes structures to purify and chill culinary water and to prevent microorganisms from growing in the chilled, purified water. It would be another advance in the art to provide an apparatus to dispense a plurality of beverages which are mixed using only purified, chilled water. It would also be an advance in the art to provide a beverage dispensing apparatus which can dispense a variety of hot and cold beverages from a single beverage dispensing station which includes structures to chill both a holding tank full of water as well as a plurality of beverage concentrate containers.
It would also be an advance in the art to provide an apparatus for dispensing beverages which can be used in a variety of settings and which can be routinely serviced by the user who has not received any extraordinary training. It would be a further advance in the art to provide a beverage dispensing apparatus which dispenses the beverage to the user at the correct temperature without the need to include ice with the beverage.